I am looking for a new job, can BCL Legal help me?

BCL Legal receive hundreds of applications each month from people looking for a new job, for a variety of Partner, Senior Associate, Associate, Assistant, NQ, paralegal and support vacancies located across the UK. Essentially these applications breakdown into those we can put forward for the role, those who might be relevant for another role, those for whom we have no roles currently but may have something in future and those who we are not in a position to assist.

For candidates who fit into the first three catergories, we will always try to contact you as soon as we are available with a view to getting all of your registration details. Those that we are unable to assist will receive an email indicating the fact. The decision as to which category a candidate falls into will be determined by the instructions we have from our clients. These are often fairly specific, in terms of the skill sets they want to see.

I was speaking to a candidate today who had received several rejection emails from agencies and was at a loss to understand why.

Generally speaking recruitment consultancies are instructed by law firms on positions that require a minimum of 6 months experience. On roles that require less than this level of experience they will often have sufficient applications from LLB, GDL and LPC graduates from their own links with academic institutions and other sources. After 6 months of experience candidates are judged to be more skilled and firms will often engage a recruiter to ensure they get the best available people.

What does 6 months experience mean? In most instances it means 6 months experience of managing your own caseload of files in a particular area of law.

I was once a LPC graduate who himself, could not understand why he never received anything other than negative responses, no matter how many applications he made on Totally Legal – this one piece of information would have made a massive difference.

In an ideal world we would to be able to help everybody, so if you apply for a position and receive a negative response, please remember that it is not that we do not want to help you. It is often the case that we cannot help at that time.